GIVE BITCOIN A CHANCE: INTEGRITY AND LEGITIMATE BACKING ARE FACTORS THAT WILL BOOST CRYPTOCURRENCIES

Creatively named digital platforms and flamboyantly designed logos for their diverse native tokens highlight the cryptocurrency world. Besides the mainstream Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Ripple (XRP), there are Dogecoin (DOGE), Aelf (ELF), Cabbage (CAB), HoboNickels (HBN), and Monaco (MCO). According to Coinmarketcap.com, this industry is a vast ocean of over 500 digital currencies, each with its own trading price and market capitalization. Every platform and their virtual coins are fighting to increase their trading value through visibility among traders and investors and for eventual survival through widespread adoption.

The cryptocurrency coming-out party in 2017 was marked by the debut of Bitcoin as the industry’s crown jewel. Bitcoin’s market capitalization currently stands at $158 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.com, putting it the neighborhood of Citigroup Inc. and Visa Inc. Trading at $9,350.85 at the time of writing, most Bitcoin price analysis have presented the virtual currency’s price going wild. Climaxing to its meteoric rise of $20,000 by the culmination of 2017, however, the dismal first quarter of 2018 saw Bitcoin’s dramatic price drop a bearish

60%, slashing billions of dollars in its total market capitalization and erasing its wild ride in

2017. Since the onset of 2018, numerous setbacks have materialized with Bitcoin going in limbo due to tax seasons, continued governmental oversight worldwide, and the repercussions of the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox Bitcoin Exchange fallout. These uncertainties may have signaled the waning interest for cryptocurrency investing as well as speculations that the end of the cybercurrency frenzy loomed.

The eventual adoption of digital currencies remains a debate with two dominant perspectives: the upbeat bulls’ and the defeatist bears’ opinions. Who will triumph? How can the hundreds of digital currencies thrive in the long haul?

BULLS

Bulls – or the optimistic enthusiasts of cryptocurrencies – believe that Bitcoin can possibly supplant fiat currencies and is reckoned to be the future of money. Furthermore, they view this digital asset as an opportunity for anyone to be a part of the longstanding elitist and intelligentsia-only world of finance. Bitcoin certainly became a global sensation that even in a destitute town in Kenya, uneducated farmers who wanted to get rich fast have transformed themselves into amateur computer programmers. They are firmly convicted that their basic knowledge of ‘mining’ digital currencies is their gateway not only to a better life but also to sudden wealth.

Crypto bulls have incessantly worked towards pushing Bitcoin’s price north of $8,000 after its nosedive continued in the first quarter of 2018. They believe that investors are still to grow in number, arguing that the blockchain technology awareness is still in its early stages. With heightened consumer demand for faster remittances, mainstream FinTech firms like Microsoft and Expedia demonstrating their interest in adopting Bitcoin payments, and retail giants like Walmart, Costco, and Amazon possibly joining the bandwagon, Bitcoin’s widespread acceptance is expected to be realized.

In China, the possible prohibition in crypto-trading contributed to the price drop, though hopes are up with Yi Gang, the new governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC). In addition, the Seoul mayor, a Blockchain technology supporter, has introduced the capital’s very own cryptocurrency — the ‘S coin’.

In recent market sentiment analysis, other bullish cybercurrency aficionados have continued to uphold cryptocurrency prices through growth-stimulating activities. Therefore, besides Bitcoin, bullish momentum have facilitated encouraging highs for virtual currencies like Cardano (ADA), EOS (EOS), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Lisk (LSK) which are some of the massive gainers in the cyber-currency market as reflected by continuous trading price upswings, some even soaring to consistent double-digits gains.

BEARS

Bears – or the cryptocurrency cynics – on the other hand, have continued to ‘short and distort’ digital currencies. The bears have strongly maintained their opposition against Bitcoin through the following key developments:

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and government officials worldwide have viewed cryptocurrency trading as shady or rigged, lacking a verifiable structure. Due to its concern for the public, the SEC issued a statement on cryptocurrency investing. SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has been wary of the widespread use of the blockchain technology by scammers. He clarified that more stringent steps will be taken by the SEC to combat these fraudsters and to further safeguard the public.

The SEC has cracked down on ICO fraud and is applying securities laws to everything from cryptocurrency exchanges to digital asset storage companies known as wallets. SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said the government watchdog is devoting a “significant portion of resources” to the ICO market. Exchanges and initial coin offerings (ICOs) are now faced with tightened oversight to prevent victimization of impressionable, gullible, and mindless investors who expect higher returns overnight.

Aligned with the mission of the SEC, the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has also heightened strict regulations of virtual currencies, disputing their legality and nature of being an obvious hype. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) have questioned the legitimacy of Bitcoin and other electronic money, asking the public of considering getting rid of anything that they don’t understand. Just like the SEC, the CFTC and the BOJ are concerned about the prevalence of fraud and the use of these virtual currencies in transnational crimes like money laundering because scammers delight in the untraceable nature of electronic currencies.

In South Korea, a polarized approach to cryptocurrencies prevail. With emphasis on taxing virtual currencies, regulation is under way and is expected to come in full circle by mid-June. Countries like China, Colombia, and Nigeria have seriously denounced Bitcoin’s ability to replace their legal tender.

To further rub salt to cryptocurrencies’ wounds, tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have all prohibited Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) advertising.

Facebook is the first social media titan to outlaw misleading and deceptive cryptocurrency ads in January 2018. Following Facebook’s footsteps, Google is also cracking down on cryptocurrency-related advertising. In its annual “trust and safety” ads report, the company expressed that it is no longer allowing ICOs, wallets, and trading advice in any of its advertising platforms effective June 2018.

Twitter has decided on the sitewide prohibition of virtual currency ads in March, citing the safety of its users as its primary motivator. The social media behemoth affirmed that its new policy restricts advertisements of ICOs and token sales globally. In a report by the Coin Telegraph, cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet services are also included in the ban, unless they’re publicly listed in major stock exchanges.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey previously acknowledged the prevalence of account fraud in the cryptocurrency arena. Thus, his social media platform is joining the dissenters’ chorus against scam-infested cryptocurrency ads and trading. Investors’ fears are expected to rise as the Twitter ad ban will certainly impact their cash flow. The trend of Bitcoin’s price plummeting is expected to carry on as well.

3) Distrust for Bitcoin Prevail in the Investment, Banking, and Finance World.

When Bitcoin gained renown, it was speculated to supplant the dollar and gold. However, its share of critics like seasoned investors and FinTech experts have signaled the red light against cryptocurrencies. Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett and his investment partner, Charlie Munger, are both Bitcoin naysayers, dismissing digital currencies as mere speculative bubbles.

As Bitcoin entered limbo at the onset of 2018, its believers reckoned that they were learning a key economic concept the hard way: the nature of speculative bubbles and its being a self-fulfilling prophecy for the cryptocurrency. A speculative bubble like the tulipomania in 17th-century Netherlands is an economic event in which investors go on a hype over a speculative asset like tulips, houses, or Bitcoin. Conspicuous of its 5 stages are “euphoria” (the stage of “irrational exuberance” or intense excitement among investors) and “panic” (after skyrocketing to high price levels which tempted its gamblers, the asset’s price drastically returns to normal, low levels).

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has also maintained that Bitcoin is a fraud, cautioning the curious and uninformed enthusiasts that they might end up in tears. Finally, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who bit the Bitcoin bait by purchasing the digital tokens back when it was valued at $700, lost roughly $71,400.

4) More Scam Victims Surface.

Believing that they’re getting wealthy by mistakenly basing their financial gains in the hasty exponential surge in Bitcoin prices, uninformed investors believe that the cryptocurrency is their gateway to affluence. Blackmailers also use Bitcoin to demand payment. These negative practices highlight the shady and hazardous nature of adopting Bitcoin in one’s financial life.

The bear market territory may have been a significant influence towards the prevailing downbeat market sentiments. The cryptocurrency industry has been weathering market storms like regulation and the dearth of investors that may have severely impacted virtual currencies, contributing to their flat trading volumes and trading prices relentlessly advancing downwards.

With these bearish developments, in order for a rosy picture of cryptocurrencies as a sterling investment can be painted, potential investors — institutional and individual alike — are necessitated to reverse this bleak scenario. Notable price movements indicate the level of investor’s interest whether they should buy or merely wait and see until prices are favorable for themselves already. These people can make positive differentials in the daily price analysis and cryptocurrency investing attractive.

PROJECTS & INITIATIVES

Image Source: Themerkle.com

Digital currency investors are usually after more computing power as well as secured data storage. They may have had a harrowing experience with their insecure investments’ trading

prices heading southward, yet some can’t help but remain bullish. Defiant against the prevailing bearish market sentiments engulfing the digital currency world today, for cryptocurrency developers and watchers, the show must go on as they launched enhancement projects, activities, and events open to all in order to raise token awareness and visibility, increasing their trading values and hurdling the downtrend dash.

Some happenings serve as the saving grace of these cryptocurrencies because despite the bearish run in the digital currency market with most digital currencies experiencing price slumps and lackluster investing, there are coins that have picked up bullish trends and increased positive market outlooks. They appear to be outperforming most cryptocurrencies, trading price-wise. Fighting the current, the upward movements in their price graphs have erased their trading price slumps and have become promisingly competitive and poised for mainstream success like popular virtual currencies Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Ripple (XRP), proving that success isn’t far from the horizon.

1) Enlistment in Massive International Coin Exchanges

*Listing in Huobi, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, is a tailwind for Cardano (ADA) and is expected to help its trading price soar northwards. As it helps maintain a bullish trend, Huobi has listed over 200 digital assets and has helped their trading volumes climb higher.

*Litecoin’s (LTC) unprecedented enlistment in world coin exchanges — South Korea’s Bitcoin exchange, Korbit, and the Winklevoss twins’ Gemini Exchange — highlights a positive gain, advancing the cryptocurrency’s marketability and consumer reach. This lightning- fast, successful enhancement initiatives under way for Litecoin (LTC) has given it the upper hand, boosting its value and is anticipated to further expose the virtual currency in the largest electronic money markets. Litecoin (LTC) has gained ground more than the other coins so much so that it is highly likely to be the selected currency for digital payments. The introduction of Litecoin Core has also resuscitated Litecoin (LTC) against further pullbacks.

*April 19 marks the commencement of the Monaco (MCO) coin’s availability for trading atBithumb. This resulted to an astronomical gain of 101% in the cyber-currency’s value in just a short period. One of the massive virtual currency exchanges in South Korea, Bithumb boosts the fledgling Monaco (MCO) with its stature in the cryptocurrency industry. Monaco (MCO) will, hence, earn more visibility to investors as it is now procurable through sending, receiving, purchasing, as well as live trading.

*Liquidity is a setback for Stellar (XLM) but this can be compensated by its enlistment on coin exchange juggernauts Binance and Bittrex. The fledgling native asset of Stellar, the Lumens or XLM, stuns bears as a dark horse relative to Ripple (XRP), steadily soaring this year despite the bearish market environment.

*Crypto bulls see great potentials for EOS (EOS) because of the main contributors for its spectacular bullish run and heightened visibility and liquidity: being well-received by Asian markets and being a component of 116 virtual currency exchanges worldwide.

2) Tie-ups with established FinTech companies

*Better trading position is on the horizon for Litecoin (LTC) with its recent partnership with Abra Global, a massive wallet and cryptocurrency firm. Opening more doors of possibilities to the inexpensive cryptocurrency, Abra Global and its application, the Abra App, opens up manifold assets in the cryptocurrency industry besides virtual currencies and fiat money, promoting digital assets exposure.

*Two popular cryptocurrency wallet developers, Wirex and TenX, share similar ideas of developing a Litecoin (LTC) debit card, showing that the development of debit and credit cards integrated to digital currencies are among the projects on the cards for some cryptocurrencies.

*After getting the official authorization from the American multinational financial services corporation, Visa, the Monaco (MCO) development group collaborated with their Singaporean counterparts in creating Visa debit cards. In addition, they also intend to contribute to the large-scale adoption of these digital assets.

*Stellar (XLM) is poised to be the darling of the cryptocurrency world with its propitious deals with FinTech behemoths Deloitte and IBM, and an international monetary institution, the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) Bank. These tailwinds for Stellar (XLM) centers on promoting blockchain education, resolving digital banking woes, as well as the likelihood of eventual widespread adoption of Stellar’s (XLM) native token, the Lumens. As with the partnership forged with the ICICI, the digital currency will be instrumental in civilizing the massive, unbanked Indian population who are just starting to engage in electronic currencies.

Reckoned to be a game changer in the banking and finance sectors and revolutionizing cross-border financial transactions, Stellar’s (XLM) power partnership exposes the Lumens to numerous international central banks, possibly making it their cryptocurrency of choice.

3) Supercomputer and Other Initiatives

*Events like the Mainnet launch throughout 2018 among several cryptocurrencies are another positive market bellwether. Causing excitement in the digital currency world, Aelf (ELF), Skycoin (SKY), and Golem’s (GNT) engagement with super computer, Mainnet, is positive in this bear market, making favorable possibilities within reach. The Mainnet project is expected to be the first-ever global super computer. It will operate with the congregation of computers worldwide using one network, the Golem (GNT) network, among others. The Mainnet initiative is foreseen to become a goldmine for computer researchers as well as machine and AI enthusiasts.

*The trading price of TRON (TRX) has been on an upswing lately, thanks to its bouncebackability highlighted by its latest introduction of the Testnet. In light of this bullish progression, this project is expected to a success, bringing in more interested parties and decentralized application developers, and increasing the likelihood of TRON’s (TRX) promotion within the top five, joining popular digital currencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Ripple (XRP) atop the list.

*More trading flexibility and price upturn for Cardano (ADA) are anticipated with international cryptocurrency exchange Binance adding the trading pairs ADA/USDT (Tether; price fixed to the US dollar) and ADA/BNB (Binance coin).

*Proponents of the Lisk (LSK)-based projects encourage the youth to further increase their understanding of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. The distribution of rewards like the Rencoin (REN) as promotional items which can be used, swapped, spent, or stored, to its young fandom can help Lisk (LSK) gain ground, enticing more cryptocurrency investors and aficionados.

*Competitions like the first-ever NEO (NEO) Hackathon was recently held for the “Chinese Ethereum”, helping its trading price rally. NEO (NEO) coin enthusiasts embarked on a European tour in April, primarily to propagate blockchain education, besides the improvement of their users’ decentralized applications (dApps) and dissemination of NEO (NEO) coins as accolades.

Some digital currencies may still have a long way to go before it reaches mainstream. But in time, their developers and supporters are optimistic of a spectacular bullish run. They believe that these organized events may mitigate listless buying and prove to be effective as prelude to their electronic money’s smooth-sailing and lucrative ride in the cryptocurrency ocean.

BLOCKCHAIN

Image Source: CNBC.com

Despite this prolonged debate between the cryptocurrency bulls and bears, innovation and the trend towards a digital future is unstoppable. Pundits may find cryptocurrencies questionable yet the blockchain technology has emerged as the digital money’s saving grace and is expected to highlight 2018. The support for the blockchain technology which facilitates Bitcoin and other cybercurrencies has been unprecedented, particularly by mainstream financial institutions like the ING Group, JPMorgan Chase, BNY Mellon, State Street, and the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

The personal stance of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Clayton apropos to ICOs and crypto regulations has softened, retracting that ICOs are not bad at all. In addition, he affirmed that the blockchain technology is auspicious for the financial industry’s future. Affirming that ICOs are “absolutely not” duplicitous, Chairman Clayton defended the regulatory measures pursued by his bureau, stating that ICOs and crypto regulations have a symbiotic relationship. He believes crypto regulations exist to develop virtual currencies, protecting gullible and uninformed investors.

Contrived by an unverifiable Japanese man, Satoshi Nakamoto, in 2008, Bitcoin is paired with the blockchain technology. A secured online ledger resistant to data modification and is supported by bankers for the promotion of more secure transactions, the blockchain technology is a powerful technology tantamount to the future of the Internet. It is believed to boost virtual currencies’ and blockchain-based equities’ trading prices. Inter-industry benefits like fraud elimination, cost reduction, improved value-based care, and swifter payments are also anticipated with this technology.

Given this blue-skies attributes of blockchain technology, cryptocurrency developers can be in a celebratory mood because they can certainly find support from blockchain. If these platform developers’ growing initiatives will work not in a shady manner, the trading prices of their tokens can set to climb higher, marching ahead of those which outperform them. Massive gainers with trading price upswings entering the double-digit territory and other future patterns of new highs for these coins can be on the cards.

RESOLUTION

With the blockchain technology saving the day for now, keeping the cryptocurrencies in existence, how can the creatively contrived virtual currencies survive in the long run? Apparently, just like commercial products and services, they need to win the investors’ trust as well as gain full financial backing from established partners.

Cryptocurrencies should first be proferred the benefit of the doubt. Sticklers don’t understand or simply reject their existence. Yet, it should be understood that electronic money is a product of the human nature to innovate. Cryptocurrencies present the side of human nature which is marked by curiosity and innovation — the desire to move forward and to be better. Hence, the will to develop money’s future is obviously inevitable.

Trust can be secured by providing an easy-to-comprehend and rules-based cryptocurrency trading. The developers should be transparent on how they do business, with special emphasis on their legitimacy. As laid out by the SEC and the BOJ, credible answers to investors’ questions should be given and not leave the latter in the dark.

Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Bitcoin investors Cameron and TylerWinklevoss, has teamed up with mainstream electronic stock exchange Nasdaq Inc. and will use the Nasdaq software, SMARTS, to monitor its markets for potentially abusive or manipulative trading practices.

Nasdaq Chief Executive Adena Friedman is supporting existing cryptocurrency exchanges and is considering the stock exchange in becoming a crypto exchange over time. The Nasdaq exchange group declared it’s exploring the launch of its own Bitcoin futures as well as its involvement in several projects that use blockchain, the technology that underpins Bitcoin, for the objectives of shareholder voting and trading private shares.

Full financial backing by established and credible institutions would also help the virtual currencies gain support for the long term. Recent market sentiments for Bitcoin (BTC), Monero (XMR), and IOTA (MIOTA) were largely technical-based, with their trading prices edging on a vigorous northward momentum of their respective critical price levels. While most cryptocurrencies are treading the downtrend path, market sentiment analysis indicates that more interested investors are necessary in order to boost these cryptocurrencies’ trading prices.

The growing interest of prominent global investors like George Soros and the Rockefeller family in virtual currency investing may contribute to bullish market sentiments, making substantial value gains for digital currencies possible and a repeat of the glorious year 2017. Persuading multi-millionaire and multi-billionaire investors to pour their investment funds and be a co-owner of the native tokens will certainly help achieve integrity for cryptocurrency platforms and their tokens.

With the achievement of gaining the trust and confidence of the public, besides the financial support of established entities and sustained buying, succeeding cryptocurrency price analysis will eventually lean on the positive for longer terms and more importantly, their target of futuristic digital money progressing to eventual adoption can come to fruition.